General Questions
Please see our Live tour here.
Live also contains integrated lessons, which will help you learn the program quickly and effectively.
The minimum system requirements for Live 8 are as follows:
Macintosh:Any G4 or faster (Intel Mac recommended)
1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher
QuickTime 6.5 or higher
DVD-ROM drive
PC:
1.5 GHz CPU or faster
1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
Windows XP or Windows Vista
QuickTime 6.5 or higher
Windows-compatible soundcard (preferably with an ASIO driver)
DVD-ROM drive
Suite Box:
48 GB disc space
Suite Download:
3.9 GB disc space
Please trash the Preferences.cfg file located in the following path:
Mac OS X: /User/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live
In Live 8.0.2 and later, support of tablets and pen input devices may be improved by adding the line:
-absoluteMouseMode
to your options.txt file.
(For general information about using the options.txt file, see http://www.ableton.com/pages/faq/options_text.)
This option causes the mouse pointer to remain visible while adjusting parameters and also causes parameter ranges to be adjusted over a larger physical area on the tablet.
This option may also improve mouse behavior when using Live on a remote desktop or within a virtual OS.
A new Mac with Tiger or Leopard has default Energy Saver System Preferences that should be changed to get the best performance with Live and other audio applications. We recommend disabling Energy Saver settings when using Live. As always, please be sure you are using the latest version of Live.
There is a minor conflict with Live's full screen mode in Panther/Tiger/Leopard. This problem is caused by the new Exposé feature in Panther. Exposé uses the F11 key, and it is therefore not available to Live by default. You can reassign Exposé to use another key via the System Preferences/Exposé control panel. A simple way to toggle full screen mode without changing Exposé settings in Panther is to use the "ctrl" key in combination with "F11." Please be aware that you can also use the small green arrow at the bottom right of the Live screen, visible when Live is in full screen mode, to exit full screen mode.
Click on the green arrow to exit full screen mode.
Yes, you can switch between Live Lite and Live LE without uninstalling anything. To do this, you will first need to unlock both products. Enter the Preferences, select the Authorizations/Trial tab and activate the switch in the "Trial version" section of the window. When you restart Live, you will be presented with a serial number box. Enter your new serial here and unlock the product (if you have not previously unlocked it.)
Once both your Lite and LE versions are unlocked, you can switch between them as follows:
- Enter the Preferences, select the Authorizations/Trial tab and activate the switch in the "Trial version" section of the window.
- Restart Live.
- Enter the serial for the product you would like to switch to.
- Press the "Switch" button.
If you like to remove the EIC 1 samples to save disk space, there are two ways to make sure your existing Live Sets using EIC 1 presets will still work:
- Update your Live Sets to reference the new EIC 2 samples:
- Install EIC 2 and, when prompted, choose to remove EIC 1 samples.
- Open the Live Set you wish to update - it should show missing samples for all EIC 1 presets you used in this Live Set.
- Press the Hot-Swap button in the EIC 1 preset and reload the same preset from the Device Browser. It will now reference the new samples from EIC 2.
- Run "Collect All and Save" on your Live Set before upgrading:
- If you want to make sure individual Sets from Live 6 stay unchanged, it is recommended to save the Live Sets as self-contained Projects before upgrading to EIC 2.
It is not necessary to uninstall EIC 1 before installing the new version. When installing EIC 2 over a previous installation, Live will ask you whether or not it should delete the original samples.
- If you choose to delete the original samples, Live will remove the entire EIC 1 installation automatically and install EIC 2 presets and samples.
- If you choose to keep the original samples, the EIC 2 presets will replace the EIC 1 presets but no samples will be deleted. Choose this option to retain backward compatibility with Live Sets that use the EIC 1 content. Please note that this option will require more disk space than an EIC 2-only installation.
Live 8: In most cases, Library problems can be fixed by pressing the "Repair Library" button in the Library Preferences. If this doesn't help, you can reinstall via the method below.
Live 7 or earlier: To reinstall your Library, follow the procedure below:
- Start Live
- Open the File/Folder Preferences and take note of the path to your Library
- Uninstall Live from 'Control Panel/Software' (WinXP) or delete the application folder (Mac OSX)
- Open Windows Explorer (WinXP) or Finder (OSX) and browse to the library path
- Delete the Library folder from the location that you wrote down earlier - please make sure you have not stored any personal Projects inside this folder.
- Delete the Preferences.cfg file, which can be found here:
Mac OSX: /user/library/preferences/ableton/live x.x/preferences.cfg
Windows: C:/Documents and Settings/[username]/Application Data/Ableton/Live x.x/Preferences/Preferences.cfg
Note that on some Windows systems the Application Data folder is hidden by default. To make it visible:
- Launch Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer!).
- Select Tools/Folder Options/View.
- Check "Show hidden files and folders."
You may need to install Live Packs in order to add presets for Live's devices. You can download Live Packs from http://www.ableton.com/livepacks. After downloading, follow this procedure to install the packs:
- Unzip the downloaded file
- Start Live
- Drag the downloaded and unzipped ".alp" file into the Live application window
- Click "Ok"
Proceed with any other downloaded Packs. In Live 7 or higher it is possible to install multiple Live Packs simultaneously.
Note: Certain Live Packs are only needed if you own a license for the relevant add-on instrument.
